While wealth managers have started to recognise the value of social platforms, particularly Facebook, when promoting their company’s brands, the private bankers themselves prefer LinkedIn over Facebook, writes Bartosz Golba, Head of Wealth Management (interim) at Verdict Financial
While wealth managers have started to recognise the value of social platforms, particularly Facebook, when promoting their company’s brands, the private bankers themselves prefer LinkedIn over Facebook. Verdict Financial’s Global Wealth Managers Survey found differences between the way social media is used by at the relationship manager (RM) and company level.
The service of first choice for most wealth managers is Facebook, which is much preferred over LinkedIn. On a global level, 72.6% of wealth management companies working with high net worth (HNW) clients use social media to promote their brands.
In a recent article in Private Banker International, Stephen Light, executive director, digital private banking at Coutts, told PBI that Facebook has been a surprise, stating that it gives the private bank three times more traffic and engagement back to its other web services than Twitter does.
Interestingly, contrary to the trend observed at a company-level, private bankers prefer LinkedIn over Facebook.
Local platforms provide significant brand-promotion opportunities as well, and this is the case not only in markets such as China (where access to global platforms might be restricted), but also, for instance, in Switzerland. Country-specific platforms are also widely used by relationship managers to build their own personal brand.
Regardless of the preferred platform, the usage of social media is forecast to increase in the foreseeable future. As 78% of consumers with investments browse through social media platforms at least once a day, wealth managers have no choice but to engage with this audience.
